Stealing the Absolute

There was a beginning of the universe which may be regarded as the Mother of the Universe. From the Mother, we may know her sons. After knowing the sons, keep to the Mother. Thus one’s whole life may be preserved from harm.
Stop its apertures, close its doors, and one’s whole life is without toil.
Open its apertures, be busy about its affairs, and one’s whole life is beyond redemption.
He who can see the small is clear-sighted; he who stays by gentility is strong.
Use the light, and return to clear-sightedness. Thus cause not yourself later distress. This is to rest in the Absolute.

(Tao Teh King 52)

There was a beginning of the universe which may be regarded as the Mother of the Universe.

The Tao embraces everything, but its center is in the transcendental realm beyond all relativity. In this field of transcendent consciousness that is the Tao, there arises a single point (bindu) from which the entire range of relative existence streams forth and into which everything returns. This point is called the Brahmayoni, the Womb of God, in Indian philosophy. It is itself the Mother, the Birth-giver and Life-giver of all.

In nineteenth-century France the Virgin Mary appeared to a peasant girl. When the girl asked who she was, the Virgin answered: “I am the Immaculate Conception.” This seemed utter nonsense to the adherents of exoteric Christianity, but to those who understood esoteric Christianity it made complete sense. The Virgin Mary is the perfect imaging of the Mother aspect of Divinity. Being one with that aspect, she both speaks and acts as the Mother of All. At the time of her appearance there was a lot of agitation about the newly-introduced dogma of the Immaculate Conception which stated that the Virgin Mary had been absolutely free of Original Sin from her conception. (It has nothing to do with the Virgin Birth, as non-Catholics usually assume.) Because of the complete lack of esoteric understanding no one in the Roman Catholic Church realized that the Virgin herself had corrected the prevailing ideas about the Immaculate Conception. She indicated that it had nothing to do with Original Sin–which is a myth–or her personal conception, but it was exactly what Lao Tzu spoke about in this verse thousands of years before. Symbolically speaking, in and through the Brahmayoni all things are conceived and given birth.

From the Mother, we may know her sons. After knowing the sons, keep to the Mother. Thus one’s whole life may be preserved from harm.

“Out here” in the vastness of Relativity, we can have no understanding of anything around us. But if we cultivate our interior consciousness we can perceive our own inner makeup which is a microcosmic reflection of Creation, the Macrocosm. When this is done we will come to understand the Mother and her nature which is shared by all her “children”–everything that exists. Knowing the Mother, we will know her children. But we must keep close to the Mother, the Origin, and not get lost in the virtually infinite labyrinth of relative existence. For otherwise we will forget who we and they really are, and where we all came from, and to whom we must eventually return. Close to the mother, we will be preserved from what the Bhagavad Gita (2:40) calls mahato bhayat, the Great Fear.

Stop its apertures, close its doors, and one’s whole life is without toil.

Wu: “Block all the passages! Shut all the doors! And to the end of your days you will not be worn out.”

This seems pretty ferocious! But what it means is very mild when we understand both what it means and how to manage it. As with just about any philosophical matter, the Bhagavad Gita illuminates the situation and shows us to do the needful. The entire fifth chapter of the Gita is devoted to this subject and I recommend you read it through.

Basically the question is how to touch the world and not be touched by it in return. Speaking of the person skilled enough to accomplish this, the Gita says: “The lotus leaf rests unwetted on water: he rests on action, untouched by action” (5:10). How simple!

Sri Ramakrishna put it this way: “I ask people to live in the world in a spirit of detachment, If you break the jack- fruit after rubbing oil on your hands, its sticky juice will not smear them. If the ‘unripe’ mind dwells in the world, the mind gets soiled. One should first attain knowledge and then live in the world. If you put milk in water the milk is spoiled. But this will not happen if butter, churned from the milk, is put in water.” In India spiritual practice is often referred to as being like churning butter from milk. If you pour milk into water it will be diluted and lost. But butter will float as a single lump and be preserved.

Sri Ramakrishna also spoke of living life as diving into water: “Gather all the information and then plunge in. Suppose a pot has dropped in a certain part of a lake. Locate the spot and dive there.… [Spiritual] discipline is said to be rightly followed only when one plunges in. You may say, even though you dive deep you are still in danger of sharks and crocodiles, of lust and anger. But dive after rubbing your body with turmeric powder; then sharks and crocodiles will not come near you. The turmeric is discrimination and renunciation.”

Detachment is necessary; not zombie-like indifference, but self-disciplined and self-contained non-responsiveness arising from understanding the true nature all things and the true nature of ourselves. That which is around us is not to be hated or despised, but seen as a passing show while we keep our awareness focussed on the inner reality of our true, divine Self. John Blofeld has written about his life in pre-Communist China where he knew many Taoists. Some lived far away from cities in quiet hermitages, but others lived right in Beijing and lived ordinary lives, yet always centered within, always solitary inside, yet at the same time often with others. This is the ideal of Lao Tzu. And here is how the Gita describes one who lives according to his ideals:

“To the follower of the yoga of action, the body and the mind, the sense-organs and the intellect are instruments only: he knows himself other than the instrument and thus his heart grows pure.

“United with Brahman, cut free from the fruit of the act, a man finds peace in the work of the spirit. Without Brahman, man is a prisoner, enslaved by action, dragged onward by desire. Happy is that dweller in the city of nine gates [the body] whose discrimination has cut him free from his act: he is not involved in action, he does not involve others.

“The devoted dwell with Him, they know Him always there in the heart, where action is not. He is all their aim. Made free by His Knowledge from past uncleanness of deed or of thought, they find the place of freedom, the place of no return.

“Absorbed in Brahman he overcomes the world even here, alive in the world. Brahman is one, changeless, untouched by evil: what home have we but Him? The enlightened, the Brahman-abiding, calm-hearted, unbewildered, is neither elated by the pleasant nor saddened by the unpleasant. His mind is dead to the touch of the external: it is alive to the bliss of the Atman. Because his heart knows Brahman his happiness is for ever.

“Already, here on earth, before his departure, let man be the master of every impulse lust-begotten or fathered by anger: thus he finds Brahman, thus he is happy. Only that yogi whose joy is inward, inward his peace, and his vision inward shall come to Brahman and know Nirvana.

We can see from this that the Bhagavad Gita is truly a universal scripture, embracing and illumining the teachings of all the masters of wisdom.

Open its apertures, be busy about its affairs, and one’s whole life is beyond redemption.

Wu: “Open the passages! Multiply your activities! And to the end of your days you will remain helpless.”

Mabry: “If you spend your life filling your senses And rushing around ‘doing’ things You will be beyond hope.”

If allow ourselves to become confused and lost in this vast world, literally forgetting ourselves, how will we ever find our way out and back close to the Mother? It is almost hopeless, and involves lifetimes of wasted effort, overwhelmed with the Great Fear.

He who can see the small is clear-sighted; he who stays by gentility is strong.

Wu: “To see the small is to have insight. To hold on to weakness is to be strong.”

Legge: “The perception of what is small is (the secret of) clear-sightedness; the guarding of what is soft and tender is (the secret of) strength.”

The material universe is immense, immeasurable, and our spirit is like the tiniest point of light. How easy to lose track of it! It seems small and weak in a huge, powerful world, but if we keep our awareness centered in it we will find true sight, true wisdom, and true eternal strength.

Use the light, and return to clear-sightedness. Thus cause not yourself later distress. This is to rest in the Absolute.

There it all is in the proverbial nutshell. Thank you, Master Lao Tzu.

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Dedication of OCOY.org

This site is inspired by and dedicated to Paramhansa Yogananda, who introduced yoga meditation and the goal of self realization to the American people, and whose writings reveal the underlying unity of original Christianity and original Yoga.